My little girl and I set about building our infantry units together. It took us about 20 minutes and we had ourselves two units of infantry each and a couple of heavy machine guns. We added 5 Cromwell tanks to the British force and 5 Panzer III's to the German team. This gave us our armies for a quick battle using our simple 'Out of the box' rules that I wanted to try with my daughter to see if they were as simple as I hoped!
Before this stated we needed a battlefield. A small table was fine and we took great pride in adding the bits and pieces we had made together. The amazing buildings that we have added to our site, thanks to our friends at Build Army. We added some brick woods (coming soon to our site) and some hedges. We also added some brilliant and simple roads thanks to 'Fat Frank' who is well worth checking out!
Happy with our battlefield, we setup. I explained two simple key rules. Keeping units within range of their unit commanders, and hiding behind terrain. We had a quick experiment with line of site (by kneeling down and checking out the battlefield!). This meant we were both able to setup out armies ready for the main event.
We rolled to go first and I (Germans) won. So I advanced everyone to cover (Panzers on the right to the woods) and got a couple of units of infantry into the central building. I left my Panzers on the left in the open as there was nothing there that could hurt them.
Everyone fired and there was not much luck! The only good news was that I was able to destroy both of her heavy machine guns...which she really didn't seem very worried about.
My daughters turn and I helped her find some nice little hiding places for her troops. Three of her comets moved into the woods on her left and the other two cheekily mover up to the road behind the house with a lovely line on my two Panzers in the open! Not my smartest move. She also moved her central infantry into the house and on the right into the woods. Some pretty healthy positions.
I got lucky with the rolls so was doing ok, until her Cromwell hit my Panzers in the wood and bailed out my nearest Panzer which is marked with the red flag.
My next turn saw more fire exchanged between my Panzers and her Cromwell in the woods. This time I knocked out one of the Cromwells and thought my luck might be changing. I aimed my central infantry fire at the units in the house but as you would expect they all clearly ducked behind the walls as nobody was hit. On my left flank, the machine guns successfully killed the squad of infantry they could see in the trees and my Panzers moved up and peppered the woods with machine gun fire (sadly to no avail).
The following turn saw her remaining two Cromwells in to wood, return the favour and knock out one of my Panzers. Her central infantry fired at the German infantry on the hedge line but missed. Her infantry from the wood on her right flank moved from the wood to within charging distance of my two Panzers. Without any shooting capacity to knockout the tanks, a couple of well placed hand grenades were there best bet. To support them, the Cromwells based in the centre of the board moved back around the rear of the woods to support the infantry assault on the Panzers.
The British infantry charged the two German tanks and the defensive fire failed to land a shot. In combat the British bailed out one tank, the Germans passed their bravery test and destroyed a squad of men. The British were not quite so brave and retreated back behind the wood.
I stuck to the plan for my turn. The Panzers took out another Cromwell but the remaining Cromwell passed it's bravery test so remained in the fight! In the centre of the battlefield a hail of bullets into the British occupied house finally took out one British squad. The heavy machine guns also took their chance to try and take out the retreating Brits but failed to hit through the woods. With the second Panzer crew passing their bravery test and getting back into the tank, they both followed the retreating British and unleashed their machine guns into them. This took out one more squad.
On my daughters turn, the one remaining Cromwell on her left flank did the job and destroyed another Panzer III. The other Cromwells also earned their stripes by bailing out one of the Panzers on her right flank. Her raining infantry also rallied and then charged the remaining Panzer, destroying it and forcing the unit to flee or be captured.
I soon realised that with only one Panzer left, this battle was going to come down to aggressive hand to hand fighting, so I advanced my infantry in the centre to try and capture the house, and on my left flank to attack her remaining two Cromwells. There was limited shooting and even those that did, did it badly! In close combat however we had better news. The British squad in the house was destroyed, even after it took out one squad of Germans with defensive fire. The infantry also destroyed one of the Cromwells and the other decided to retreat.
This left no active British units on the table so much to the annoyance of my daughter we declared it a German win. She has insisted that next time she wants to be the Soviet army as they have 'bigger tanks'!
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